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Volume 11 Issue 2Squatters in Cyberspace: Netreprenuers or Piratesdotcom?BY MARLENE AGMATA-TUCKER*Abstract From its arcane beginnings as a tool for Government, the military and academia and with the increasing popularity of the internet not only as a communication tool but as a tool for electronic business and commerce, problems and issues pertaining to allocation and protection of domain names have arisen. Cybersquatting and cyberpiracy are recent additions to the legal lexicon as a new category of wrongful conduct in cyberspace or the information superhighway.* * This paper investigates cybersquatting by presenting the legislation on the matter and some of the cases decided on the issue. * Marlene Agmata-Tucker is a Legal Practitioner in the Australian Capital Territory and a lifetime member of the Integrated Bar of the Philippines. She works with the ACT's Department of Justice and Community Safety as Legal Policy Officer and is a member of the E-Business Law Group, National Centre of Corporate Law and Policy Research, University of Canberra. The views expressed in this article are entirely those of the author and not to be attributed to the ACT Government or the UC. ** Typosquatting is a variation of cybersquatting. It involves the registration of domain names with slight variations of well-known web sites (e.g., yyahoo.com, wwwaol.com, yahwoo.com). When surfers mistype web addresses, they are directed to these slightly varied web sites which are then able to earn thousands of dollars as a result of unintended typographical errors of internet users. These web sites are paid by the number of clicks they are able to re-direct to other portals. Advertisements posted on their web sites pay as well for the number of clicks which they generate.
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